1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to clocks and clock radios, and more specifically to interactive voice controlled clocks and clock radios. The methods and apparatus of the invention provide for setting substantially all initial parameters for a clock or clock radio, including the time, alarm, radio frequency, etc., by voice command, and also provides for synthesized speech to indicate the present time, alarm set time, radio frequency, etc., to the user.
2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
Over the years the modem world has required higher and higher levels of interaction and interdependence of mankind. In addition, people seem to be performing many more of their activities or tasks during both the day and night. To be able to get all of these tasks and activities accomplished, a greater and greater premium has been placed on punctuality. For example, most activities start at a preset time and tardiness with respect to the activity may have little effect or sometimes disastrous effects. In addition, because of the international element of business, some business meetings such as teleconferencing may take place at any time during the 24 hour day, and travel or transportation for meetings, vacations, etc., may also start and/or terminate at almost any hour.
In any event, time awareness cannot be avoided and the problem of being awakened from a sound sleep has become more and more critical. At the same time, since being awakened artificially almost every morning has become commonplace, clocks used for awakening someone have evolved from the strident sound of the "alarm clock" to the more acceptable and less traumatic wakening to music, news or other pleasant sounds. Modem digital alarm clocks or clock radios also provide LED's (light emitting diodes) for visual indication even at night. Also, of course, energy conservation in every field is encouraged and some types of clocks such as analog quartz clocks or electronic digital clocks are specifically desirable as they typically have long life and require very little energy to function. Unfortunately, even though the total amount used is small, they do require a constant supply of electrical power to run, and an uninterrupted source of power if they are to remain accurate. Such power sources simply do not exist. Batteries in battery powered devices or clocks run out or "die" and commercially available line AC power supplied to the home and business are occasionally interrupted by a myriad of causes. In addition, techniques for improving the efficiency and dependability of time keeping systems such as alarm clocks, clock radios, etc., are always being sought.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,697,930 to Roberts et al. and entitled "Transformerless Clock Circuit With Duplex Optoelectronic Display" discloses a transformerless power supply and display energizing circuit for a clock circuit with a duplex optoelectronic display driven by low voltage integrated clock circuit having positive and negative voltage input terminals and the duplex display having a first terminal connected to a first common cathode and a second terminal connected to a second common cathode of the display. The transformerless circuit is powered from an AC source. An impedance, which may be either resistive or reactive, reduces the AC voltage to a level suitable for the integrated clock circuit. The transformerless circuit also generates synchronous DC level-shifted pulse trains for driving the positive input terminal of the integrated clock circuit alternately between a first voltage and a reference voltage while synchronously driving the display first terminal between the first voltage and a voltage of equal amplitude and opposite polarity.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,595,861, issued to Simopoulos et al. and entitled "Power Supplies for Electroluminescent Panels" discloses circuitry for converting a DC power supply to an AC power supply for electroluminescent lamps which are self-inhibited from further oscillations and are current limited in the event that a failure occurs in an EL (electroluminescent) lamp which results in the EL lamp being shorted. According to one embodiment of this patent, a single ended and push/pull transformer power supply is disclosed and according to a second embodiment, a transformerless solid state power supply is disclosed. The solid state power supply uses a voltage multiplier to increase the AC or square wave voltage to a level of almost 140 volts for powering the EL lamp. Thus, it is seen that the circuitry in this patent discloses techniques for converting from DC power to AC power, not AC power to DC power and further provides circuitry to inhibit oscillations and operations of the circuitry in the event of a shorting of the EL lamp or a substantial voltage drop.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,201,039, to Roland M. Marion and entitled "Numerical Display Using Plural Light Sources and Having a Reduced and Substantially Constant Current Requirement" discloses a numerical digital display having a reduced DC current requirement per character display site. The circuitry is useful for powering a digital display in an AC powered clock or clock radio in which it is desirable to keep the DC current requirement of the display to a substantially constant minimum suitable for use with a low cost transformerless power supply conventional with radio receivers. The current requirements of the digital character display site is reduced over that of full parallel operation by selectively serializing certain light sources in a manner leaving the display control circuitry uncomplicated by permitting each light source state to be controlled by a shunt control switch sharing a common bus. The shunt control, which diverts rather than prevents current flow in the display, allows the display current to remain substantially constant irrespective of the digital numbers displayed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,109,180 to Ogle et al., and entitled "AC-Powered Display System With Voltage Limitation" discloses an AC-powered display system which includes a gas discharge display panel, an integrated circuit, and a limiting network. The integrated circuit is provided as a display pattern controller and may also comprise a digital alarm clock circuitry which provides outputs for controlling the gas discharge display panel. The circuitry also includes a limiting network which reduces the current through the system in response to an excessive voltage across the controller.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,063,234 to Arn et al. and entitled "Incandescent, Flat Screen, Video Display" discloses a flat screen video display comprising a plurality of incandescent lamps arranged in an addressable X-Y matrix. The circuitry also provides a memory and driver circuit for each individual incandescent lamp for use in a flat screen video display apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,602,795 to John B. Gunn and entitled "Transformerless Power Supply" discloses circuits for converting an input voltage from a high amplitude to a lower amplitude DC voltage.
As electronic devices, including devices such as clocks and clock radios and radios, have included more and more features, controlling them has become more and more complex. Therefore, a simple and direct method of control would be advantageous. In addition, modern society now also recognizes that many people who may be blind or physically handicapped by missing, crippled, or otherwise non-functioning hands still have much to give to society. Therefore, methods and apparatus for providing these people more control of their daily life activities is certainly desirable. The simple act of being able to set an alarm or a radio station, may become difficult for someone without the use of hands. Likewise, although some braille watches and other timekeeping devices are available for the blind, the ability to audibly hear the present time to the minute would also be desirable.
The use of presently available speech synthesis clocks are a start to this problem, however, they simply are not sufficient. More elaborate real-time voice recognition and synthesized speech requires huge amounts of computational power and memory such that presently available synthesis and recognition systems have been far too expensive to consider for clocks, clock radios and the like.
Some examples of new technology include four U.S. Pat. Nos. (4,214,125; 4,314,103; 4,384,169; and 4,384,170) to Forrest S. Mozer alone or with Richard P. Stauduhur as co-inventor all based on the same specification which is set out in full in the 4,214,125 patent, and is incorporated by reference in its entirety herein. These patents disclose methods and apparatus for analyzing and synthesizing speech information in which a predetermined vocabulary is spoken into a microphone. The resulting electrical signals are differentiated with respect to time, digitized, and a digitized waveform is appropriately expanded or contracted by linear interpretation so that the pitch periods of all such waveforms have a uniform number of digitizations and the amplitudes are normalized with respect to a reference signal. These "standardized" speech information digital signals are then compressed in the computer by subjectively removing and discarding redundant speech information such as redundant pitch periods, portions of pitch periods, redundant phonemes and portions or phonemes, redundant amplitude information (delta modulation) and phase information (Fourier transformation). The compression techniques are selectively applied to certain of the speech information signals by listening to the reproduced, compressed information. The resulting compressed digital information and associated compression instruction signals produced in the computer are thereafter injected into the digital memories of a digital speech synthesizer where they can be selectively retrieved and audibly reproduced to recreate the original vocabulary words and sentences from them.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,790,754 issued to Mozer et al. and entitled "Speech Recognition Apparatus For Consumer Electronic Applications" discloses a spoken word or phrase recognition device which does not require a digital signal processor, large RAM, or extensive analog circuitry. The input audio signal is digitized and passed recursively through a digital difference filter to produce a multiplicity of filtered output waveforms. These waveforms are processed in real time by a microprocessor to generate a pattern that is recognized by a neural network pattern classifier that operates in software in the microprocessor.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,657,380 issued to Todd F. Mozer and entitled "Interactive Door Answering and Messaging Device With Speech Synthesis" discloses an automatic door answering and message system having an interior unit and an exterior unit that communicate via an RF link. The system uses voice recognition and synthesis to interact with visitors. In addition to playing messages to and recording messages from visitors, the system broadcasts to the inside the responses to predetermined queries, thereby permitting a resident to screen visitors in secret. Programmed dialog scripts control the automated interaction between the machine and visitors. The system also has an intercom feature that enables the resident to talk with a visitor without opening the door. When the intercom is turned on any automatic dialog script is interrupted. The system also includes a sensing means for sensing the open/closed state of the door so that any automated dialog script is interrupted by the opening of the door.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,022,071 issued to Mozer et al. and entitled "Two-Way Voice and Digital Data Analyzer for Telephones" discloses methods and apparatus which allow the sending or receiving of either speech or digital data calls over a phone line by correctly connecting either a digital data machine or a voice phone with the line without human involvement. An analyzer connected to the phone line interrogates each incoming call to determine if it is a voice call or a digital data call. If it is a voice call, the analyzer rings the phone and connects it to the line when the phone is answered. If the incoming call is a digital data call, the data machine, such as a fax, is connected to the phone line. The distinction between voice and digital data calls is based in part on analysis of incoming response to an interrogation of the caller with messages from a speech synthesizer. For outgoing calls, the analyzer determines which of the phone and the data machines becomes active and connects the active one with the phone line while it blocks access to the line by the other one until the outgoing call is complete. A line manager is employed for the voice phones connected to the line upstream of the analyzer so it too is connected or disconnected from the line during the appropriate times.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,435,831 issued to Forrest S. Mozer and entitled "Method and Apparatus For Time Domain Compression and Synthesis of Unvoiced Audible Signals" discloses compression and synthesis techniques and related apparatus for time domain signals. It is specifically related to signals whose information content resides in the power spectrum such as speech and more particularly signals whose amplitude is aperiodic, such as unvoiced speech sounds. Compression techniques include eliminating serially redundant segments of information. Synthesis particularly of unvoiced sounds which are sensitive to injected artificial periodicity, involves repeating sequential portions of the same segment representative of the sound signal, including commencing and terminating at different points of each repetition, varying the length of the portion and reproducing the portion forward and backward in time.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,433,434 issued to Forrest S. Mozer and entitled "Method and Apparatus For Time Domain Compression and Synthesis of Audible Signals" discloses compression and synthesis techniques and related apparatus for time domain signals, particularly signals whose information content resides in the power spectrum such as speech. Compression techniques include adjusting the phase of harmonic components of a signal unit to obtain an equivalent power spectrum signal of a minimum number of discreet levels.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,008,865 issued to Shaffer et al., discloses a method of awaking a sleeper by increasing the intensity or light level of a lamp slowly and smoothly over a period of time selected by the user. The circuitry incorporates an optocoupler to control the firing angle of a triac.